Daytime Emmy Awards: Stars of the day come out at night

Jon Lindstrom is a nominee in the 37th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards Sunday on CBS.

Jon Lindstrom is a nominee in the 37th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards Sunday on CBS.

Jay BobbinZap2It

Actors and talk show hosts. First-time nominees and previous winners. Series that will continue and others now canceled.

There's a little bit of everything at the Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards, as the 37th annual edition will have when CBS televises the event from the Las Vegas Hilton on Sunday, June 27. Many familiar faces will be on hand -- afternoon-drama queen Susan Lucci among them -- as this year's lifetime achievement award is presented to Agnes Nixon, creator of the ABC staples "All My Children" and "One Life to Live."

Just as last year's Daytime Emmys marked a last hurrah for a CBS serial that seemed to have run forever -- "Guiding Light" -- so it is again this time. "As the World Turns" ends its 54-year run Sept. 17, and among those who have earned one of the show's final 13 nominations is daytime drama veteran Jon Lindstrom ("General Hospital"), who has played the ever-ambitious Craig Montgomery since late 2008.

Lindstrom ironically has landed his first-ever Daytime Emmy bid, for outstanding lead actor in a drama series, for a job that's soon to end. His last scenes as Craig were slated to be taped just before the ceremony, and he says that though he has no idea how Craig's story will conclude, "I just hope somebody throws him under a bus, or he finds some way to change his ways spectacularly, so that it's authentic as well as creative."

Preceded in the role by several other actors, Scott Bryce and Hunt Block being the longest-running, Lindstrom notes that he replaced another performer in a soap role "once before, way at the beginning of my career, but it wasn't a really well-known show nor a well-known character. The fact was that I was doing my first regular job on television, and I just wanted to get it right.

"This time, though, I have to admit that it was like stepping into the shoes of James Bond or something. Everybody had their opinion about the character and believed they knew how he should be played. If I was doing it differently than what they expected, I was greeted with either a surprised smile or a look of utter befuddlement, as if to say, 'How could you possibly interpret this character that way?'

"In order to make your way as an actor," Lindstrom reasons, "you have to make everything your own, and you have to do it against unbelievable odds to begin with."

It could be another big year for Rachael Ray at the Daytime Emmys, too. The vivacious food expert's eponymous, syndicated weekday show is up again for outstanding talk show/entertainment, which it won for two of its three past nominations in the category. Ray herself has her third chance to win for outstanding talk show host.

"I think our show is unique," Ray says, "in that we're truly a mixture of a cooking show and a chat show. What I'm most proud of is that people see a lot of themselves in the show."

Jon Lindstrom is a nominee in the 37th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards Sunday on CBS.